CYCLING

TVE, the Span­ish pub­lic-ser­vice broad­caster, re­newed its me­dia rights deal for the Vuelta a Es­paña, the an­nual cycling stage race, for a fur­ther four years, through to 2016. TVE’s rights fee is thought to be close to €3.5 mil­lion per year, some 25 per cent less than it has paid in pre­vi­ous years. This re­flects the grind­ing fi­nan­cial cri­sis still af­fect­ing Spain, which had just posted its eighth con­sec­u­tive quar­ter of re­ces­sion.

19 July

SBS, the Aus­tralian pub­lic-ser­vice broad­caster, re­tained me­dia rights to cycling’s Tour de France un­til 2023 in a new agree­ment with race owner and pro­moter Amaury Sport Or­gan­i­sa­tion. The ex­clu­sive deal in Aus­tralia in­cludes live cov­er­age of ev­ery stage, race high­lights, pay-tele­vi­sion rights, plus ex­ten­sive on­line and mo­bile rights, along with rights to other cycling events in the ASO port­fo­lio.